Les Misérables
mind, I will come.’ When the mass was finished, I watched him leave the
church with his daughter, and I saw them enter a carriage. I certainly
did tell him the last door in the corridor, on the right.”
“And what makes you think that he will come?”
“I have just seen the fiacre turn into the Rue Petit-Banquier. That is
what made me run so.”
“How do you know that it was the same fiacre?”
“Because I took notice of the number, so there!”
“What was the number?”
“440.”
“Good, you are a clever girl.”
The girl stared boldly at her father, and showing the shoes which she
had on her feet:—
“A clever girl, possibly; but I tell you I won’t put these shoes on
again, and that I won’t, for the sake of my health, in the first place,
and for the sake of cleanliness, in the next. I don’t know anything
more irritating than shoes that squelch, and go _ghi, ghi, ghi,_ the
whole time. I prefer to go barefoot.”
“You are right,” said her father, in a sweet tone which contrasted with
the young girl’s rudeness, “but then, you will not be allowed to enter
churches, for poor people must have shoes to do that. One cannot go
barefoot to the good God,” he added bitterly.
Then, returning to the subject which absorbed him:—
“So you are sure that he will come?”
“He is following on my heels,” said she.
The man started up. A sort of illumination appeared on his countenance.
“Wife!” he exclaimed, “you hear. Here is the philanthropist. Extinguish
the fire.”
The stupefied mother did not stir.
The father, with the agility of an acrobat, seized a broken-nosed jug
which stood on the chimney, and flung the water on the brands.
Then, addressing his eldest daughter:—
“Here you! Pull the straw off that chair!”
His daughter did not understand.
He seized the chair, and with one kick he rendered it seatless. His leg
passed through it.
As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter:—
“Is it cold?”
“Very cold. It is snowing.”
The father turned towards the younger girl who sat on the bed near the
window, and shouted to her in a thundering voice:—
“Quick! get off that bed, you lazy thing! will you never do anything?
Break a pane of glass!”
The little girl jumped off the bed with a shiver.
“Break a pane!” he repeated.
The child stood still in bewilderment.
“Do you hear me?” repeated her father, “I tell you to break a pane!”
The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, rose on tiptoe, and
struck a pane with her fist. The glass broke and fell with a loud
clatter.
“Good,” said the father.
He was grave and abrupt. His glance swept rapidly over all the crannies
of the garret. One would have said that he was a general making the
final preparation at the moment when the battle is on the point of
beginning.
The mother, who had not said a word so far, now rose and demanded in a
dull, slow, languid voice, whence her words seemed to emerge in a
congealed state:—
“What do you mean to do, my dear?”
“Get into bed,” replied the man.
His intonation admitted of no deliberation. The mother obeyed, and
threw herself heavily on one of the pallets.
In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner.
“What’s that?” cried the father.
The younger daughter exhibited her bleeding fist, without quitting the
corner in which she was cowering. She had wounded herself while
breaking the window; she went off, near her mother’s pallet and wept
silently.
It was now the mother’s turn to start up and exclaim:—
“Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut herself breaking
that pane for you!”
“So much the better!” said the man. “I foresaw that.”
“What? So much the better?” retorted his wife.
“Peace!” replied the father, “I suppress the liberty of the press.”
Then tearing the woman’s chemise which he was wearing, he made a strip
of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl’s bleeding
wrist.
That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his torn
chemise.
“And the chemise too,” said he, “this has a good appearance.”
An icy breeze whistled through the window and entered the room. The
outer mist penetrated thither and diffused itself like a whitish sheet
of wadding vaguely spread by invisible fingers. Through the broken pane
the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun
of the preceding day had actually come.
The father cast a glance about him as though to make sure that he had
forgotten nothing. He seized an old shovel and spread ashes over the
wet brands in such a manner as to entirely conceal them.
Then drawing himself up and leaning against the chimney-piece:—
“Now,” said he, “we can receive the philanthropist.”
CHAPTER VIII—THE RAY OF LIGHT IN THE HOVEL
The big girl approached and laid her hand in her father’s.
“Feel how cold I am,” said she.
“Bah!” replied the father, “I am much colder than that.”
The mother exclaimed impetuously:—
“You always have something better than any one else, so you do! even
bad things.”
“Down with you!” said the man.
The mother, being eyed after a certain fashion, held her tongue.
Silence reigned for a moment in the hovel. The elder girl was removing
the mud from the bottom of her mantle, with a careless air; her younger
sister continued to sob; the mother had taken the latter’s head between
her hands, and was covering it with kisses, whispering to her the
while:—
“My treasure, I entreat you, it is nothing of consequence, don’t cry,
you will anger your father.”
“No!” exclaimed the father, “quite the contrary! sob! sob! that’s
right.”
Then turning to the elder:—
“There now! He is not coming! What if he were not to come! I shall have
extinguished my fire, wrecked my chair, torn my shirt, and broken my
pane all for nothing.”
“And wounded the child!” murmured the mother.
“Do you know,” went on the father, “that it’s beastly cold in this
devil’s garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you!
He makes us wait! He says to himself: ‘Well! they will wait for me!
That’s what they’re there for.’ Oh! how I hate them, and with what joy,
jubilation, enthusiasm, and satisfaction I could strangle all those
rich folks! all those rich folks! These men who pretend to be
charitable, who put on airs, who go to mass, who make presents to the
priesthood, _preachy, preachy_, in their skullcaps, and who think
themselves above us, and who come for the purpose of humiliating us,
and to bring us ‘clothes,’ as they say! old duds that are not worth
four sous! And bread! That’s not what I want, pack of rascals that they
are, it’s money! Ah! money! Never! Because they say that we would go
off and drink it up, and that we are drunkards and idlers! And they!
What are they, then, and what have they been in their time! Thieves!
They never could have become rich otherwise! Oh! Society ought to be
grasped by the four corners of the cloth and tossed into the air, all
of it! It would all be smashed, very likely, but at least, no one would
have anything, and there would be that much gained! But what is that
blockhead of a benevolent gentleman doing? Will he come? Perhaps the
animal has forgotten the address! I’ll bet that that old beast—”
At that moment there came a light tap at the door, the man rushed to it
and opened it, exclaiming, amid profound bows and smiles of adoration:—
“Enter, sir! Deign to enter, most respected benefactor, and your
charming young lady, also.”
A man of ripe age and a young girl made their appearance on the
threshold of the attic.
Marius had not quitted his post. His feelings for the moment surpassed
the powers of the human tongue.
It was She!
Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meanings contained in those
three letters of that word: She.
It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the
luminous vapor which had suddenly spread before his eyes. It was that
sweet, absent being, that star which had beamed upon him for six
months; it was those eyes, that brow, that mouth, that lovely vanished
face which had created night by its departure. The vision had been
eclipsed, now it reappeared.
It reappeared in that gloom, in that garret, in that misshapen attic,
in all that horror.
Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his
heart troubled his sight. He felt that he was on the brink of bursting
into tears! What! He beheld her again at last, after having sought her
so long! It seemed to him that he had lost his soul, and that he had
just found it again.
She was the same as ever, only a little pale; her delicate face was
framed in a bonnet of violet velvet, her figure was concealed beneath a
pelisse of black satin. Beneath her long dress, a glimpse could be
caught of her tiny foot shod in a silken boot.
She was still accompanied by M. Leblanc.
She had taken a few steps into the room, and had deposited a tolerably
bulky parcel on the table.
The eldest Jondrette girl had retired behind the door, and was staring
with sombre eyes at that velvet bonnet, that silk mantle, and that
charming, happy face.
CHAPTER IX—JONDRETTE COMES NEAR WEEPING
The hovel was so dark, that people coming from without felt on entering
it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two newcomers
advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able to
distinguish the vague forms surrounding them, while they could be
clearly seen and scrutinized by the eyes of the inhabitants of the
garret, who were accustomed to this twilight.
M. Leblanc approached, with his sad but kindly look, and said to
Jondrette the father:—
“Monsieur, in this package you will find some new clothes and some
woollen stockings and blankets.”
“Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us,” said Jondrette, bowing to the
very earth.
Then, bending down to the ear of his eldest daughter, while the two
visitors were engaged in examining this lamentable interior, he added
in a low and rapid voice:—
“Hey? What did I say? Duds! No money! They are all alike! By the way,
how was the letter to that old blockhead signed?”
“Fabantou,” replied the girl.
“The dramatic artist, good!”
It was lucky for Jondrette, that this had occurred to him, for at the
very moment, M. Leblanc turned to him, and said to him with the air of
a person who is seeking to recall a name:—
“I see that you are greatly to be pitied, Monsieur—”
“Fabantou,” replied Jondrette quickly.
“Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember.”
“Dramatic artist, sir, and one who has had some success.”
Here Jondrette evidently judged the moment propitious for capturing the
“philanthropist.” He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same
time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of
the mendicant on the highway:—
“A pupil of Talma! Sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune formerly smiled
on me—Alas! Now it is misfortune’s turn. You see, my benefactor, no
bread, no fire. My poor babes have no fire! My only chair has no seat!
A broken pane! And in such weather! My spouse in bed! Ill!”
“Poor woman!” said M. Leblanc.
“My child wounded!” added Jondrette.
The child, diverted by the arrival of the strangers, had fallen to
contemplating “the young lady,” and had ceased to sob.
“Cry! bawl!” said Jondrette to her in a low voice.
At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the
talent of a juggler.
The little girl gave vent to loud shrieks.
The adorable young girl, whom Marius, in his heart, called “his
Ursule,” approached her hastily.
“Poor, dear child!” said she.
“You see, my beautiful young lady,” pursued Jondrette “her bleeding
wrist! It came through an accident while working at a machine to earn